


One Last Breath

by underweargods



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Forgive Me, M/M, My First AO3 Post, Stydia, literally my first ever fic, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 16:04:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1947435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underweargods/pseuds/underweargods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A letter from Lydia to Derek about what Stiles left behind.<br/>A very short work and probably a bad one; I know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Breath

Derek,

  
You know, my scream stops the noise around me. It clarifies the air that hangs between me and the voice I’m trying to focus on. The voice isn’t them actually speaking, but more the dialog between their mind and the world. Sometimes it is the remnants of that dialog; the times when I’m too late.

I still don’t really understand my powers, but I don’t think that anyone else really does either. But I am learning. I was always so focused on the intricacies of math and physics and economics and history, that I thought I had this life figured out. And then this.

The dead leave a lot behind – little whispers, usually – parcels meant for no one. The first time I properly heard this, and understood, was when Allison died. I could feel her passing and I could hear the whispers. I howled in reaction to feeling it, the sand of her life slipping through my fingers. And I heard it, then, her voice the only one left to my ears. It was simple and it made me understand what I was hearing most of the time.

They make peace with it, before they go. Or at least they try to. Let’s not talk about the people who don’t. I kept her words to myself. I couldn’t bear to let them go, and I feared repeating them might have taken them from me. I guess I know better now. She had so little to say, in the long run.

  
I’m sorry…  
I love you…  
Forgive me…

  
She meant those all to a number of people, but none of them got to know, except me and I know she got a chance to tell Scott. But they knew and she knew. She left on good terms.

Her death was a major blow to me – to us all – but it was a totally different story with Stiles. Another time I was too late. So much of my life spent ignoring him; wishing he would leave me alone. By the end that had changed, obviously, but I was not prepared to lose him.

It was quick.

I grew up loving the attention. It was annoying, but if I didn’t have a little sheriff’s son to dismiss on a weekly basis, what would I have ended up with for self-confidence?

It was so quick.

He was the first person to see through to what I really was. To see what I’d kept hidden for the fear of how others would react. Popularity is a far gone world to me and I am lucky to have him to thank for that.

It was so quick. Blade in, blade out. We weren’t even close.

For all the ignoring I did in our early years, I was suddenly unable to keep it up. His voice was all I could hear. I screamed when I knew he was gone. A sudden, guttural response to what – at the time – was the worst case scenario. I lost a piece of myself, a part of my past; I could not help but react.

I could hear him immediately. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t bitter, he wasn’t apologizing or forgiving, he wasn’t even sarcastic. He was telling something of a story, honest and true. He had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. It was something he couldn’t take with him, and so he let it go.

He left it there for no one, and I listened for it again and again and again. He was ready to let go, but I wasn’t. He took me as a budding and insecure little girl, a mess of cruelty and arrogance; he twice lifted me out of those insecurities and changed my life. Probably more. It is hard to just let someone like that go.

The more I listen, the more it fades. So I am taking my last few chances to hear him, and I am passing them on to you. He had the courage to help that mire of a girl that I was, but he was too afraid to do the same for you. But now, he has nothing to lose and frankly, Derek, neither do you.

I quote:

 

  
I wanted it: the bite.

  
I wanted it, but for all the wrong reasons. As much as I want to say I was just happier being human – just one of those soft little things that occasionally got in the way – I really just wanted the bite. Cowardice and stubbornness make a great duo. I was obviously too afraid, but I also knew the reason I would agree to or even ask for it was a bad one.

There is a shirt in my bottom drawer. Some weird blue and – what even is that color? Brown? Yellow? – I guess we’ll call it yellow striped thing. A t-shirt. It is a stupid thing to have to think to yourself, but that shirt has caused me a lot of trouble. It has been years – kind of gross, really – and I still haven’t washed it. Scott always talked about having an anchor and I knew every time, that shirt would be mine.

I could still smell him on it, if I had the bite. His body imposing itself on the fabric. His body. I’ve tried, don’t get me wrong, but for a guy who is part dog, who is always running, who is always half-dying, he doesn’t really have a stench. Probably for the best.

But if I had the bite, that wouldn’t matter. I could know the scent of him that I could not learn as a human. Pesky, scrappy, little human. That is what he saw when he looked at me, that is what I saw in his eyes. I could have that perfect body too, if I was a werewolf. And I could lay in my bed and smell him in my room. I could smell him on a shirt in my bottom drawer and that would be enough.

Orange. The shirt was blue and orange. I stopped taking it out just in case it was losing the scent by being exposed to all the air in my room. You know, just in case I got the bite.

Once I came home and my room had been cleaned up, my laundry was done and had been put away. I called out to my dad in a panic. I started having a anxiety attack. I didn’t get a chance to open the bottom drawer. He ran into my room and calmed me down, brought me back to earth. I asked him what he was doing, what did he touch?

He told me he planned to have someone over that night and my room sometimes gave off a less than pleasant smell. I was a teenage boy. My life was running from monsters. I got it. He tried not to make a big deal of it, he really did. But if I had the bite, I would have been able to hear it: The blood inside his heart when he told me. The three squishing sounds of it trying to rush through:

_Clau-di-a_

The bottom drawer was untouched, and I asked him to leave it that way in future. I was so happy for him that it almost didn’t matter, though. I told him I’d make myself scarce. I spent that night looking for something in the woods with Lydia, but we didn’t find it. I was too busy thinking of the shirt; of how I almost lost the shirt. Obviously I still would have had the shirt but I mean, once it was washed, it wouldn’t have been _the_ shirt.

If I had the bite, though, Derek might have taken me a bit more seriously. Which actually would have been worse, I think. In the few years I have known him, I have spent so much time covering my tracks on all this, making sure no one found out. Least of all him. I couldn’t even imagine how he’d react. Or at least not how he’d actually react. I have imagined him reacting a lot, and you can trust me that it would not have happened any of those ways.

I took to finding excuses to half-confront him, reasons for him to slam me up against a wall, or to grab me by the shirt and pull me in close. I loved to be really sarcastic to him. He hated that and would always look at me with his _I’m-about-to-slam-you-up-against-a-wall_ eyes. He could hear my heart rate rise, but luckily for me he’s not the kind to think farther than heart rate being accountable for lying or for fear. But it wasn’t fear making my heart race.

Of course I was afraid of him, especially at first. But that was short lived. It didn’t take long before I realized he was the one. It didn’t matter that he was a guy, probably because I thought of him as something above boy, girl, man, woman. He was just Derek. Terrifying, bitter, annoying, beautiful, stupid, perfect-bodied Derek. But I mean we could all have bodies like that if we were werewolves. All it takes is the bite.

Before him the only person I ever thought I loved was Lydia. And I did love her. But it was not the kind of love you share. You know, I guess I’m bad at that kind of love. But what I mean is, I was in love with Lydia from afar and I knew deep down it was never going to be more than that. Oh, I guess that is the same love too...

She can probably hear this. Oh well. She already knows I loved her.

In the end, none of this matters. I loved and I took what I could from it. It was never going to happen. I would never get it to a point that it could happen. The only thing I wanted was the bite. I didn’t want it for the power. I didn’t want it to be able to help anyone. I didn’t even want it to be better at the things I suck at. I only wanted it so I could smell him when he wasn’t around.

  
I only wanted it to pretend he was mine.


End file.
